


Personal Jesus

by Ajaxthegreat



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Guns, M/M, Rated For Violence, a lot of metaphors, and some sexy stuff later probably, because it's me come on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-22
Updated: 2017-07-06
Packaged: 2018-11-03 12:15:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10967034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ajaxthegreat/pseuds/Ajaxthegreat
Summary: "You ever been quail hunting?""No.""Takes two people, see. One to scare the quail out the bushes and one to pick em off."





	1. Save me, Preacher

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EllaBesmirched (El_Bell)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/El_Bell/gifts).



> The title is Depeche Mode, though I was (of course) thinking of the Johnny Cash cover.  
> This is a conflicted love letter to Cormac McCarthy, which is why it's written... like this. #sorry

The preacher came back to bury his father, who he'd killed. 

He'd killed his father for love, or money, or power, or something else that didn't mean anything as soon as the man was dead. 

The gun was his father's, and his father's, and his father's. A single-action Colt revolver with a hammer that rang out solid and loud when you cocked it. 

His father had gurgled something low and confused when he'd shot him, over and over again like a prayer. You got the Devil in you, kid. You got the Devil in you. 

The preacher had pulled the hammer back again and the weight of the sound settled like a thunderstorm. 

Sure do, he said. Ask him when you meet him.

And then he shot his father again. 

They found his father a year later at the bottom of a mine shaft, and the preacher came home to bury him.

It was hot; it was always hot. He'd forgotten, almost. The way the heat and the dry red dirt got under fingernails and inside eyelids. His father's coffin was pine, and so freshly made he could still smell it. 

He was expected to give the service, so he did. His voice only wavered on the very last word. 

Amen. 

The crowd spoke in one big low voice and it was swept away by the wind.    


Amen. 

After the service the crowd lingered and talked, asked the preacher if he'd be around for a while. The preacher looked at his mother, who sagged under a weight so heavy she'd soon be crushed by it. 

Yes, he said, and smoked all of his father's cigarettes. They stank of the dead and the loneliness of his childhood. 

The church was empty by nightfall, and the preacher sat on the porch with a bottle of his father's whiskey and watched the sun sink, the evening redness in the west. He only closed his eyes when the last line of light sank under the flat earth, slow and then too fast. 

He didn't dare dream for fear of his father, waiting there in his grave. 

A voice pulled him head and shoulders out of sleep and he nearly fell off his porch chair. 

Save me, preacher. 

The voice was so far away that the preacher felt like Ben for a moment, like the man he'd been before, and he opened his eyes almost entirely out of delirium. He dropped the whiskey and barely heard it when it shattered on the ground. 

The man who’d grown out of the boy who’d once been Armie Hux leaned against his porch column, smoking a cigarette and pointing his father’s father’s Colt at him. The shirt he was dressed in was blue, and between the red of the dirt on the porch and past it, and the dirt under the preacher’s nails, and his hair and the rust colored freckles under his eyes the blue was like the only thing that existed in the world. 

Save me, preacher. 

Don’t look like you need much saving, Armie. 

The man who’d grown out of Armie pulled back the hammer of the gun and it was loud, so loud, so loud. Well, my immortal soul and all, he said. 

Your immortal soul’s been damned a while. 

Yours too, looks like. 

Where’d you get that gun? 

The preacher tried to make the question seem casual, like his hands didn’t shake when he pointed to it. His father’s father’s gun. Evidence, it was. Should’ve buried it with his father, should’ve thrown it in the river and let it sink with the mud. The thing he used to kill a man and he couldn’t get rid of it. He just couldn’t get rid of it. 

The man shrugged. He finished his cigarette and pulled another from his pocket, lit it with the same hand he was holding the gun in and the preacher’s toes curled, the gun was so close to his face. The match he used to light it was red and the flame was red and the dust on his fingers was red and his eyes were blue, so blue. The preacher stared.

The man who’d grown out of Armie spoke through a cloud of smoke that didn’t smell at all like the preacher’s father. 

Found it. 

Bring it here, the preacher said.

The man pushed the hammer back up. The cigarette hung out of his mouth when he looked at the preacher and said, You don’t look like Ben much.

I’m not.

He looked at the man and ten years earlier, he looked at him again. Ten years earlier, he looked at him under the bleachers of the high school football stadium and said, You never kissed a boy before, have you?

On the porch he said, You don’t look like Armie much.

I’m not.

They regarded each other for a long time, the crickets so loud the preacher thought they’d climbed in his skull. The moon lit up the dirt silver, but it was still red. Red under the floorboards, red caked inside the nails of the porch steps. Red dirt all the way to the flat bottom of the sky. The man who had been Armie’s eyes were blue, the only thing in the entire world. 

Stop that, the man said.

Stop what?

Lookin’ like that.

The preacher cocked his head, wished he hadn’t dropped his whiskey. His fingers itched for it.

The man took a very long drag on his cigarette and clarified through a mouthful of smoke, You know. All sentimental-like.

Thought you were dead.

The man smiled around his cigarette and it was sharp, and it bit at the preacher through his clothes.

I’m not.

What do I call you now? Said you weren’t Armie anymore.

His father’s father’s Colt was still in the man who had been Armie’s rust-freckled hand. He didn’t like it there, mostly because of how safe he felt it was.

Hux. You?

The preacher thought for a moment, and a coyote screamed in the distance, high and human and alone. He said, Ren. He said, Preacher. I don’t care.

Hux sat down on the porch step with the gun in his hands, running his fingers over it. He pointed it out at the red rocks, the lights of the town. The preacher’s family’s church was far away; quiet in the shadow of a town he never wanted to see again.

What are you doin here? Hux? 

Heard you were back.

A lifetime earlier, Ben looked at Armie and said, What are you doin here, Armie? A lifetime earlier, Armie smiled around the joint between his teeth and squinted into the sun, in that way he always had. Armie said, You wanna cut class?

Now, the moon spilled something wet onto the red dirt and Hux just looked out silent, eyes too much in the silver of the nighttime. The preacher didn’t feel like himself, but since he’d shot his father he didn’t feel like the boy he’d been either, so he set them both to rest. He felt tired.

Hux passed him a cigarette, different than his father’s, and said, What happened to Ben?

The flame was orange and when it went out everything was blue.

He died, said Ren.

When?

While ago, said Ren. He took a long drag on his cigarette and it sank into the back of his neck, the over-worn pads of his fingers. He said, It just took him a long time to lie down.

Hux turned. There were freckles in his irises, on his ears, on his neck. 

He in the ground with your father?  

Ren nodded. Hux gave him back the Colt. 

The next day, he went into town. His head was too full of ghosts, and he needed more cigarettes. He bought two packs and a bottle of whiskey. 

Ren sat on the porch of the corner store and smoked and drank all day, and no one bothered him. There seemed to be an unspoken agreement - when a man buries his father, you let him drink himself quiet on his own. The problems of the town were content to wait, just this one day, until the dirt over the older preacher's grave was settled. 

Ren smoked half the pack of cigarettes before he realized they were the same ones from last night, that they smelled like Hux. Tasted like him, too. He ignored it and drank his whiskey with water from the corner store. The buzz of flies around the back of the store was loud, but otherwise the town was quiet. The dust in the air made everything red and hazy and surreal, like a bad dream. 

The scrape of a chair being dragged in front of him startled him awake before he even realized he'd been asleep. He squinted through the red haze of the air and saw blue, so blue he wanted to be sick - 

You're always sleepin on some porch or other, said Hux. 

Ren drained the last of the bottle and said, Haven't you heard? I'm mournin. 

Hux's hair was in his eyes, somehow too red for this town. Too bright. 

Grief suits you, preacher, he said. 

Let me alone to bury my father in peace, Hux. 

Hux was chewing on a match, and the end of it was the same bright red as his hair. Combustible. He smiled too slow and it ran up the backs of Ren's heels in the same way. Ren finished his cigarette and pushed the butt into the empty bottle. 

Somewhere down the quiet road, a screen door slammed over and over and over again. 

Ren took out another cigarette and before he could light it, Hux leaned forward and took the match out of the corner of his mouth, struck it on the backs of his teeth and lit it for him. He met Ren's eyes and nothing in this town was so blue. 

Ren said nothing. 

I got a job, said Hux. 

Ren shook his head and said, I don't do that anymore.

You ain't even heard it yet. 

Ren said, You were always a bad influence on me, Armie. 

Hux smiled and far down the quiet road, Ren heard the firework thunderclap of two gunshots. Hux turned his head toward the sound and Ren caught sight of the red shell of his ear, all those little veins. 

Hunting season, said Hux, but his voice said something else. Quail, I expect.    
Ren looked at him and he didn't blink.

Ren didn't answer and so Hux said, you ever been quail hunting? 

No.

Takes two people, see. One to scare the quail out the bushes and one to pick em off.

Ren breathed in smoke until he felt it in his blood cells and said, So which one are you? 

Hux’s smile cut him easily. 

I’m the gun.

Something twisted in Ren's stomach at his smile, the low pointed tone of his voice. He looked down the road expecting another gunshot, but all the bullets had already been fired. 

He said, Why won't you leave me be? 

Cause I know you, said Hux. A small white scar cut clean across his left eyebrow, straight and sharp and new since Ren had seen him last. 

I know what you are. Ain't nobody else knows that. 

Ren sat back and tilted his head until it rested on the dusty side paneling of the corner store. He said, What's that?

You're a bad man, preacher. 

Ren turned to him and took in all his new scars, vicious little lines of evidence across his barely-crooked nose, under his ear. On his neck, too close to his jugular to be an accident. A mess of barely visible white scar tissue across his knuckles, cutting across his freckles like a knife. They said something violent that Ren pushed away in favor of saying, I ain't the one ended up in prison. 

Hux's eyes went flat like a dead thing on the side of the road. He squinted and all the freckles under his eyes crowded up next to each other. 

Yeah, well. Served my time like a good boy. 

Ren looked down, found he couldn't look Hux in the eye. 

Yeah. 

The corner shop owner had a bloodhound, old and blind, and he waddled his way out the front door onto the porch with his ears dragging in the dirt. He went straight for Hux, put his head in Hux's lap. 

And now? asked Ren, watching Hux's fingers scratch the dog behind the ears. His fingers were long, sure like a musician's, and covered in scars as if they'd been broken a hundred times. 

Now what? 

Now you served your time are you still- 

Ren cut himself off and Hux looked up from the dog in his lap. The dog whined. 

Still a good boy? said Hux, smiling a little. 

Ren swallowed and flicked his cigarette off the porch. You know what I mean, he said. 

The scar over Hux's eye pulled when he squinted, made it impossible to look away from him. He had a match tucked behind his ear and dust from the road in his hair. It was impossible to tell what was dirt on the back of his neck and what was freckled. 

Yeah, I know what you mean, Hux said.

I don't want any trouble. 

Hux laughed, a long, sure exhale of smoke and contempt.

Sure you don't, he said. 

I got no interest in quail hunting, Hux.

That why you shot your father, then? Cause you're such a good preacher?

Keep your goddamn fucking voice down, Christ. 

No interest, my ass, said Hux. He leaned forward and the bloodhound whined again, settled himself at Hux's feet and laid his big head on Hux's shoe. He said, I know you need this.

You talk about it like I'm some kinda -

Animal? Said Hux. His voice was low, and it reminded Ren of the time he'd gone deer hunting with his grandfather. Now, keep your voice nice and gentle, his grandfather had said. Pacifies the prey and whatnot.

Hux smiled and a lifetime ago in a hunting blind in a tree Ren's grandfather said, They won't know what hit em.

About the job.

No.

Just lemme tell you who -

I don’t hurt people anymore, Hux.

Hux laughed. That’s a shame, that is, he said. You’re damn good at it.

Ren looked away.

You don’t gotta hurt anyone, Hux said, scarred fingers tapping out a rhythm on the bloodhound’s head. Just be a preacher, preacher.

I ain’t gonna use God to pacify your bloodlust, Armie. 

Armie’s dead, preacher. The scar over Hux’s eye pulled tight as the set of his mouth. The air smelled like it was going to rain, something sharp and green. Hux said, And someone heavenly turned a blind eye when that boy died.

There was a roll of thunder over the flat red earth that shook the screen doors in their hinges, and Ren thought he’d better get home to get out of the rain. Hux finished his cigarette and flicked it off the porch, got up and sent the dog inside.

Hux said, God can kiss my ass. 

Ren walked home with dust in his shoes and a mouth full of ash.  


	2. Peacemaker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Glancing this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and buried him in the sand."  
> -Exodus 2:11-12

When it rained, it rained hard and biblical on the town, and the screen doors finally stopped slamming.

Later, when the clouds were gone and the dust smelled like water and metal, Hux came to him with his hair stuck wet and blood colored to the back of his neck, bone-deep smell of smoke finally washed off of him by the rain. They sat together on the porch of Ren’s church and Ren’s voice shook when he said, Just stay away from me, Hux.

What are you so afraid of me for, said Hux, squinting too blue into the red sun. I’m just a person, preacher.

But Ren was focused on the howling of a coyote and did not hear him clearly. He heard Hux say, I’m just a poison, preacher.

He looked off in the direction of the town, where a cloud of red dust hung over it like a plague. Guess you’re right, he said, and passed Hux his cigarette. They shared it while the moon rose on the two of them, slow and silver and alive.

The man who had grown out of the boy who'd once been Armie Hux seeped back into Ren's life like an encroaching riverbank, quiet as a weed.

Ren found him one day in the flat red backyard of the church, shooting beer cans off a stump with a cigarette between his teeth. He was so used to his presence now that he hardly noticed, just sat down behind him and opened a beer for himself. Hux had always been an invasive species.

It was only when the (too red for midday) sun bounced sharply off the barrel that Ren noticed Hux was shooting beer cans with his father's murder weapon.

Ren said, Christ, Hux. Where'd you get that?

Found it. Again.

Hux smiled when he said it, but only with the side of his mouth that wasn't facing Ren.

Ren lit another cigarette and squinted up into the sun. His hair was so long it curled over his collar, red at the ends with dust. He didn't feel much like a preacher these days.

Hux was still playing target practice with his father's father's Colt, and every time the hammer came back Ren killed his father again.

Either blackmail me proper or put it away, Ren said.

Hux shut one eye and squinted at Ren through a steady stream of smoke and sick, stale air - the kind that comes before storms. He cocked the gun and aimed it at him.

Ren put up his hands, but only halfway like he only half wanted to live.

I could shoot you clean dead at fifty paces, preacher.

I know it, Ren said. I seen you shoot.

Hux laughed and it was louder and deadlier than the gun would have been.

I know it, said Hux, less a smile and more like he was baring his teeth for show. The scar under his ear was pink and angry from sun and the ones on his hands looked like spiderwebs.

He put the gun down on the arm of a lawn chair and said, I ain't blackmailing you, Ren. It was the first time Hux had said his new name.

Hux's voice was razor-edge blue, like staring at the sun too long and then closing your eyes, and Ren found that his name sounded sharper in it. He squinted mostly because he felt the urge to move his face.

Use your own damn gun, then.

Which one?

You know the one. The Peacemaker.

Peacemaker's only for special occasions, said Hux.

Ren looked at him and noticed that there was a deep-groove scar on his forearm like a trench had been dug there, and the wind had filled it with red dust.

Special occasions like quail hunting? Ren asked.

Hux nodded, stamped his cigarette out.

That's right.

Ren said, So the Peacemaker's for special occasions but my family heirloom's fine for target practice, huh?

One of Hux's hands was in his pocket and the other was more sure than Ren had ever seen a man's hand be. He pulled back the hammer again and was looking at Ren when he shot and hit the can. A lifetime of memories tugged him when he watched Hux shoot. Nobody else fired a gun like that.

Family heirloom's been blood baptized, preacher, he said. The wind blew his hair into his eyes and he squinted. He said, Anything sacred you had in this gun's been washed clean out.

Ren was silent. He wasn't sure how long they were there, pretending to ignore each other. Hours, it must have been.

So, the job, said Hux.

Ren was silent.

Hux grinned and sat his other hand on top of the hammer like a quick-fire circus star. He fired four times in a second, and the last four cans fell off the stump, each with one perfect hole.

Name's Snoke, you know him?

Yeah. I know him. He was the mayor after I left town.

Uh-huh. Well he was the mayor in prison too.

Ren leaned forward. He said, Man wasn't in prison.

Not bodily, per se, said Hux. He dragged his lawn chair till it was facing Ren's head-on, the long rays of the evening sun all caught up in his hair. He squinted and his pupils shrunk down to almost nothing, but he didn't put his hand up to shield his eyes.

Hux said, That man made my four years ... difficult.

The sun turned the green freckles in Hux's eyes yellow like a lizard. Ren had the sudden, ancient, instinctive urge to hide under a rock.

Hux said, You heard I was dead cause I was, preacher.

Quit talking like that and say what you mean, said Ren. You always were allergic to speaking plain.

I'm speaking plain now.

Hux had a match in his mouth and it moved when he said, I died in the prison infirmary.

Ren looked up, found the red of the sun and the green-yellow of Hux's lizard eyes made him think of a cremation fire.

I's dead for three whole  minutes, they said. Wrote me a death certificate and all.

Hux looked away from Ren and straight into the setting sun like he couldn't see it.

Hux said, Got released after. Some kinda technicality in -

Here Hux paused, looked briefly at Ren and Ren felt the suffocating weight of four years of guilt and pain. A flash of memory, of Armie being led headfirst into a dusty police car, blood on his hands, saying It won’t stick Ben it won’t stick they’ll get me out -

Hux spat on the ground and finished, Some kinda technicality in my case. Snoke’s after me to finish the job, looks like - loose ends and all.

Ren said, Shit.

Yeah.

Shit.

Hux leaned forward and laid his Peacemaker in Ren's lap. It was heavy and still cold despite the heat of the day, like it existed someplace else and only appeared in Ren's lap because it wanted to.

Ren picked it up, and when Hux threw his empty beer can up in the air Ren shot it down with one hand.

The barrel smoked. Ren turned the Peacemaker over in his hands and said, Thought she wasn't to be used for target practice.

Hux squinted, freckles thick and rust colored on his face, all his scars white as bones on his skin.

Declarations of war don't count, he said.

 

The lawman came to the church door at 7 in the evening.

He had a brand new shiny gun at his hip that Ren was sure didn't shoot as straight as Hux's, and the kind of face that lied before he even spoke.  

Evenin, preacher, he said, and his voice was oily and squirming, self-assured like a man who'd already won a fight.

Ren didn't speak, and he didn't open the door to let the lawman in.

You gonna let me in, son?

Son. It turned Ren's stomach.

The lawman's hands were fat and fumbling, fingernails caked with red mud.

No, sir, Ren said. Not until you tell me what it is you need.

The lawman lowered his voice and said, Got a message for you from Mayor Snoke.

He ain't the mayor anymore, said Ren.

The lawman laughed. He said, Sure he ain't.

Ren opened the door, heartbeat in his palms. The words seared his throat when he said, Come on in.

The church was mostly stained glass and wooden pews, so the lawman's footsteps landed loud and heavy and rang out something terrible. Ren's were silent.

What can I do for the ... mayor, Ren said.

The lawman sat in the front pew and spread himself out, left a fingerprint of sweaty mud on the wood. He smiled.

We'll say the police received an anonymous tip, he said. Concerning your father's death.

A fly landed on the stained glass above Ren's head and the entire church held its breath. The dust in the air didn't even dare to settle.

Ren said nothing, just leaned against the altar and watched the lawman's dead-eyed stare.

Mayor wants you gone, he said. Out of this town. He knows you've got a, uh. History. With that Mr. Hux.

Here the lawman's voice got sly and he bared tiny, crooked teeth at Ren. Still, Ren said nothing.

The Mayor's prepared to sit on this anonymous tip, the lawman said. Provided you leave town immediately. And you leave Mr. Hux to his business.

Ren said, What business has the mayor got with him?

That ain't your concern, son.

Son. Ren swallowed the disgust dripping out of his teeth at the sound of the word. He looked up at the way the last ray of sun pierced straight through the stained glass of Jesus's eye.

If I don't leave town?

The lawman put a hand on his hip, over his shiny new gun.

Well, then, he said. I'd guess you'd probably eventually resist arrest.

Ren cracked his neck and the lawman twitched. Ren said, You can't shoot me.

Man what killed his father's a dangerous man indeed. I'm sure I feared for my own safety.

You threatening me, sir?

Course not, son. Just sharing some information.

Right, said Ren.

Everything was so deathly quiet that the church held an air of reverence for this first time since Ren had killed his father. It felt so holy that Ren looked at the lawman and said in the sort of low voice reserved for dangerous things, Get out of my church.

The lawman reached for his gun and Ren thought briefly of the color blue before he realized Hux already had a gun to the lawman's head.

Everything about Hux was so deadly quiet that Ren wasn't even surprised to see him there, wasn't surprised he didn't hear him come in or notice him walk right up to them.

A lifetime ago, he looked at Armie across a table filled with guns and money and Armie winked at him and said, They never see me till it's too late.

In the hushed, sacred silence of the church, Hux cocked his gun against the back of the lawman's head and said, Go ahead and reach for it.

Ren looked at Hux and didn’t say anything. He held up his hands and waited while the dust hung in the air, lit up by the stained glass and the evening sun.

The lawman’s neck went stiff and he looked at the floor vaguely, as if he was spending a great deal of energy imagining what to do next. His hands shook where he’d raised them. Hux’s didn’t shake at all.

A lifetime ago, Armie’s hands shook on the buttons of Ben’s shirt.

The lawman’s fingers twitched and a shard of ice shot through Ren’s chest. He couldn’t look away from the lightning-strike magnetism of Hux’s stare.

Hux didn’t move the gun from his head, and didn’t look away from Ren when he said to the lawman, I believe the man told you to get out of his church. His hand was steadier than Ren’s had ever been in either of his lives.

Hux’s eyes were bluer than a blowtorch flame, worse than his weapon. Ren was ducking before the lawman even reached for his gun.

Hux shot him, point-blank through the back of the head, and most of his face scattered itself all over the floor of Ren’s church. The barrel of the Peacemaker smoked.

Hux held it up, smoke from the barrel curling under his ear and said, Like I said, preacher. Only for special occasions.

Shit, Hux.

Hux looked down at the dead man and said nothing. There didn’t seem to be much of anything to say. A mote of dust drifted down from the stained glass of Jesus’s face to the floor, like a tear.

Ren straightened, eye to eye with Hux and with the lawman’s blood on his hands and face. He took a step forward.

The corner of Hux’s mouth lifted just enough to pull his scars. His freckles were thick under his eyes, over his nose. He reminded Ren viscerally of the coyote he’d seen as a child once, the same look in its eyes, face warm in a bloody deer.

Ren’s stomach twisted when he realized he’d missed it. He held out a hand and Hux put the still-smoking barrel of the Peacemaker in his palm.

Hard to miss from that close, Ren said, low and soft.

Hux laughed, quieter than the dust, sharper than the stained glass.  

Such a holy thing belongs in this church, said Ren. His voice hardly even disturbed the dust in the air.

Hux said, The gun?

Ren looked at him for a long time, and the sharpness of his eyes was too bright, too blue, went right for his jugular. Ren felt himself dying. Over the steady sound of the dead man’s blood dripping onto the stained wood floor of his church, Ren spoke.

The gun, he said. Yeah, the gun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> literally any positive comments are SO welcome this is the strangest style i've ever written in 
> 
> love you bye


	3. The Light of Dead Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the great book of John you're warned of the day  
> When you'll be laid beneath the cold clay  
> The Angel of Death will come from the sky  
> and claim your poor soul when the time comes to die  
> -Hank Williams, Angel of Death

For three days and three nights, Ren had the same dream: drowning.

Nothing on all sides but blue, blue, blue, in his eyes and his mouth, creeping down his throat into his lungs. And always a feeling of ecstasy like he couldn't open his mouth and breathe it in fast enough, and always a desperate begging for death, and always a deep, tear-soaked sigh when he woke to nothing but the red air. 

On the fourth day, he dreamed a memory: one of Armie baring his teeth with both hands wrist-deep in a man's chest, speaking soft and sentimental like he swore he never would, saying, This is it, Ben, we're getting out, marry me. He dreamed of sirens and of the crushing black of unconsciousness. 

On the fifth day, he found Hux at dusk in the parking lot of the town gas station with a cigarette behind his ear and the gas station owner's blue tick hound licking blood off his knuckles. Hux's mouth smiled by half when he saw him, but the rest of his face chilled Ren to the bottom of his spine. He leaned against the trunk of the same car he'd driven back when Ren had known him - a black 67 Camaro so run-down Ren was surprised it still ran. 

Wondered when you'd come callin again, preacher, said Hux.  

Ren spoke across the parking lot, big and sweeping over the film of red dust and dog tracks. The job, he said. 

Hux looked up from the dog still licking his hand and stood. One of his feet kicked off the bumper of the car and for a moment his legs were swallowed by a cloud of red dust. 

The job, said Hux, and offered him a cigarette.

Ren took one. Hux lit it for him, and his hands smelled like smoke and soap and bullets. 

Hold a service for the pig. 

Ren squinted. The pig? 

The lawman. 

Ren shook his head and said, you shouldn't speak ill of the dead, Hux.

Through a mouthful of smoke Hux said, I sent that man to hell and we both know it. 

Ren looked at him. Hux shrugged.    
Be seein him, he said. Soon, I expect. I'm already half dead anyway. 

Hux- 

But not till I get Snoke, Hux said, voice vicious. He made a fist and the scars on his knuckles stood out like bare bones.

They stood in the parking lot in silence, and Ren watched a flash of lightning crack the sky in the distance. It didn't make a sound. 

Heat lightning, Hux said with his blowtorch eyes on Ren. It builds up, you know. In the air. 

Ren tried to duck his head and look away but found he couldn't, caught and held still like an animal. He swallowed and his throat was dry. 

Yeah. 

The lightning flashed overhead again, silent and heavy. Ren took a long drag on his cigarette and it was the same brand Hux used to smoke, before he'd gone to prison. The taste of it in his mouth again made him shiver. Still, he couldn't look away. 

The silence stretched further, and Ren hardly even wanted to blink. He thought of all the dreams of drowning, of the inexplicable way Hux's flat, ice-cold stare broke something in his chest. 

Ren opened his mouth and said, Hux- 

On second thought, preacher, that may not be heat lightning after all. Hux looked away, finally, and Ren felt the rushing agony and relief of being released from a bear trap.  

You best get going if you're gonna miss the rain, said Hux, with his eyes safely away from Ren's face, and the bear trap snapped closed again. 

Ren hesitated, but said nothing. There was dust over Hux's hands now from the wind, and it almost covered the scars. Ren turned and walked home. 

It never rained, but Ren sat on his porch and drank whiskey and watched the silent flash of the heat lightning all night, and by the end of it he was so drunk he couldn't even pretend he wasn't thinking about the dead look of Hux's eyes in the evening sun.

He did hold a service for the lawman, and the mayor didn’t show. It was painful, the service. There were only ten people there, sweating in their folding chairs, fanning themselves with the only kind words ever written about the man and trying not to look at their watches. The rest of the chairs sat empty and silent in the graveyard collecting dust. Ren forgot the lawman’s name twice, but no one seemed to notice.

After, Hux hovered and listened to the chatter and Ren realized that it was the only reason he’d had the service. Hux came up and spoke low and soft into his ear, and Ren made such a tight fist in his pocket to keep from shivering that his nails broke the skin of his palms.

I know where he is.

Who?

Hux looked at him, and there was a brown freckle in one of his eyes. He squinted and looked off at the red flat earth of Ren’s inherited cemetery.

You know who, preacher.

The tone of his voice was terrible, wet and red and it cut Ren straight to the bone. He still had to suppress another shiver.

Lawman’s partner’s got a loud voice, said Hux. Two hours drive. On the river.

Ren looked up at the sky, hoping for rain, but there was nothing. Hux looked up too, took a step closer. He lowered his voice until it dragged in the dirt and said, If you’re waitin on something to break this heat, preacher, you best settle in.

He leaned toward Ren to grab his lighter off the podium where it had been holding down the service programs like a paperweight. His shoulder nearly brushed Ren’s, and the only kind words ever written about the lawman blew across the cemetery. The heat hung in the air like something solid, so thick Ren could almost hear it. He really did need it to rain.

But it had been three weeks of no rain and seeing Hux in parking lots, and one day of distant thunder and drinking alone on the porch, and a week and no rain since.  

Let’s go, he said.

Hux grinned, and Ren realized that the dimple that Armie had had in the left side of his face was gone, covered by an almost imperceptible scar. His smile looked different without it.

Hux was behind the wheel of his car before Ren could even blink, and he patted the side of the driver’s door and said, Get in, preacher. We’re going quail hunting.

The drive was long, and hot, and Ren got so much dirt in his hair and under his fingernails that he thought he’d never wash the rust off. Hux didn’t speak, just smoked and drove too fast, one freckled arm hanging out the window. Ren fell asleep and dreamed.

Armie was barely 18, freckled, hair short, with an easy lying smile and eyes that hurt to look at. His hands on the gun were so steady it made Ben shake. He was cleaning it, pieces scattered across the kitchen table of his father’s house, brush in his hands. Hank Williams crackled over a radio mounted under the kitchen cabinets.

Armie was 19, freckled, hair short, with an easy lying smile and eyes that melted a little when they looked at Ben. He was teaching Ben how to properly dispose of the bodies, saying it was time for Ben to start pulling his weight. His hair was light from the time he spent outside, the same painfully bright red-gold as the sun just before it disappeared. He spoke so softly it felt like something fragile and alive, a baby bird voice reserved for Ben that said, We’ll be out soon, Ben. And we’ll be rich.

Armie was 21, freckled, hair curling over his ears, with an easy lying smile and eyes that gave everything away. He rolled up a governor in a blood-soaked carpet and washed his hands, speaking softly to the man before he moved his body. You were a bastard, huh? he said. Glad they had us kill you. He used his baby bird voice for Ben, and for the dead.

Armie was 23, freckled, hair longer and redder, with a laugh that felt like cracking glass and eyes like a dying star. He held Ben’s face in his hands and his fingernails were red, he could never quite get all the blood off them. He said in his baby bird voice, We’re getting out. We’re getting out.

Armie was 24, bloody, manic, desperate. There was blood up to his wrists, splattered up to his elbows. A few freckles over his mouth that were too dark and too red. His voice broke like little hollow bones when he heard the sirens and said, Ben, go. Ben, come back for me. Ben, marry me.

There was the bright, terrible ringing of something metal hitting the floor, like a ring or a bullet.

Ren shot up in the passenger seat and Hank Williams was playing over the car radio. Hux looked over at him, 28, freckled, with a smile like a knife and eyes so dead Ren had to look away. 

You were talkin in your sleep, Hux said, blowtorch eyes back on the road. I’s about to wake you.

Ren shifted, cracked his neck. What did I say?

Hux squinted almost too quickly for Ren to see it, like a facial tick. He said, Nothing.

It was quiet a long time and then Hux said, Mayor made me feel like a dog in that prison. You know that? 

Ren had nothing to say. 

They found the town the mayor was in and Hux pulled into the parking lot of a bar called The Cantina. It was late enough to be dark, so dark that when they got out of the car Ren looked up, expecting to find heavy clouds. He found nothing but stars and clear sky, a little hazy with the heat.

A lifetime ago, Armie laid with Ben on the rooftop of their high school and touched his fingers to the back of Ben’s hand. He pointed to the stars and said, Can you believe most of those are already out? The light’s just now reachin us?

Now, Hux lit a cigarette with Ren’s lighter even though he had a match behind his ear, cupped his hands together and the fire lit up his whole face, threw deep shadows into all his scars. On the exhale he said, New moon tonight.

Ren licked his lips and said, Did you plan this?

Don't know what you mean.

The darkest night, the one easiest to hide a body in, said Ren. Did you plan this?

Hux smiled and Ren could barely make it out in the light from the lit end of his cigarette. The only parts of Hux’s face Ren could see were lit by fire and the light of dead stars. He stared too long and Hux said, Let’s go.

The night smelled like slow black river water and unshed blood, and Ren licked his lips again. Hux said, Time to see a man about a dog, preacher. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry this is sad and short but i swear i'm back and will write a longer more satisfying chapter next - some bloodshed is due, y'all.


	4. I Got Two Guns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A revelation, and a storm.

Ren was still waiting on the rain when they walked through the doors of the Cantina, but Hux was right. Nothing would break the heat until it was ready.

They sat down shoulder to shoulder at the bar and Hux ordered himself a rye whiskey and water. The bartender looked at him a long time, took in his scars like she was reading a road map. 

She slid the whole bottle into Hux's hands and shrugged. 

Looks like the water's out, she said. Her voice was deep, resonant, like she lived inside a cave. 

Hux raised one eyebrow but wrapped a hand around the neck of the bottle and took a drink.

He said, Water's out? 

Whiskey ain't poisoned, said the bartender, nodding at the tap. Water is. 

Hux nodded. 

Ren looked up at the bartender - she was tall, taller than most men - and said, Bourbon, please. 

She smiled and Ren had the sudden urge to check behind him. She said, So you're the sweet one, then. 

Hux had the bottle halfway to his lips when he muttered, That's right.

The bar had gone quiet when they walked in, the same way a forest goes quiet before a storm. Ren wasn't surprised. Hux had a certain gravitational force, like a natural disaster. His presence always gave the persistent, shoulder-blades itch of impending death. 

Without even realizing it, every man in the bar was counting his heartbeat.

That you, Hux? said a voice. Ren froze where he'd been reaching for his drink and locked eyes with the bartender. She looked over Ren's shoulder and her knuckles went white on his glass before she passed it to him. 

Hux had gone calm and loose in something almost like relief. He took a long drink of his whiskey and then said to the bottle, voice quiet, Well hello, Mr. Mayor.

The Mayor sat down on a chair next to Hux and Ren's ears rang. Hux's hands were soft and steady on the neck of the bottle. 

You sure grew into something, Hux, said the Mayor. His voice was too gentle, sick, and it made Ren feel uncomfortably full of blood and water. The Mayor said, Grew into an animal, you did. I can see that. 

Hux took a drink of his whiskey and Ren's ears rang. Quietly, under his breath, Hux said, Treat us like dogs and we become wolves. Then he turned to Ren as if the Mayor wasn't there. 

The scar that cut his eyebrow pulled in the wrong direction when he squinted at Ren and said, Why'd you do it?

What?

Behind him, Snoke twisted his face into something like a smile. 

Hux said, Abandon me like that. Sell me out. 

Ren felt something solid and freezing slam into his chest, and he looked at Hux for a long time without speaking. 

I didn't, said Ren, cut to the bone that Hux had been carrying that idea around so many years. I didn't. 

Hux studied his face and then blinked too many times. 

Hux said, But - and then cut himself off and started again. He said, The Mayor told me - 

Something dark and exhausted settled over Hux's eyes, a storm that had been coming a long while. Ren looked to the bartender long enough to see her nod in understanding and then turn her back. 

Before anyone else moved Ren was out of his chair with the barrel of his father's father's Colt pressing on Snoke's jugular. 

Mayor.

The Mayor said nothing.

You told him I sold him out, said Ren, and he hardly recognized the rabid-animal tone of his voice.

The Mayor looked up at Ren and his eyes watered. He said in a voice like a gasping exhaust pipe, Are you going to kill me with that, Mr. Solo? 

Ren pulled back the hammer and the whole room heard it, and the whole room turned.

Yessir, said Ren. Sure am. 

The Mayor looked to Ren's left, then his right, where ten men all stood with their hands on their guns. 

The Mayor said, Why? 

That's my friend, said Ren, and behind him he could hear the crackle of Hux's knuckles tightening on the bottle of whiskey. That's my friend, there. 

It was like comparing a forest fire to a candle, but The Mayor knew nothing of natural disasters. 

Friend? said the Mayor, Hell, I got lots of friends. And two men behind Ren cocked their guns. 

Ren grinned with one half of his face when he heard Hux take a drink from the bottle behind him. 

Ren said, I don't.

And he turned and fired at the man behind Hux before anyone else blinked. 

Hux grinned like a shark and brought his whiskey bottle down on the head of the man to his right, who'd been aiming for Ren's eyes. 

The bartender turned on the jukebox, and Ren and Hux got to work. 

Ren's father's father's Colt was an old gun, didn't shoot straight but when it sat up against a man's skull it did just fine. He sent three men to hell with three bullets, but none of them were the man he wanted. 

The Mayor was ducking behind the bar for cover, and when the bartender reached out to stop him he brought a pistol to her temple. 

Ren had the rest of the bar to deal with first. 

An old man dressed like a cowboy reached for his gun across the room and out of nowhere, the top half of a whiskey bottle stuck itself in his chest. Ren whirled around to see Hux wink at him before striking a match on the bar. He threw it at one of Snoke's men, the one who'd drawn on Ren first.

Ren should have been ready, he'd seen Hux break the bottle over the man's head, he'd seen the whiskey soak into his clothes and his hair, but he wasn't. 

The man went up so fast it seemed supernatural, and in his last brief moments of consciousness his screams were the least human thing Ren had heard in all his life. 

Hux didn't even blink, and the fire of the burning man lit up all his scars. 

The bar took a step back from the two of them after that, and Hux stood with his back against Ren and his gun steady in front of him.

Like old times, said Hux, with a match sticking out of his mouth and blood smeared through the red of his hair. 

Ren felt something pull in the bottom of his stomach and smiled before he could catch it.

Two men pointed their guns at Ren and two at Hux, and when all four hammers pulled back the bar went silent. 

Hux's shoulders leaned against Ren's, and he was already reaching behind himself to the gun Ren kept tucked against his back. Ren did the same. He knew Hux kept another one just over his liver, and his fingers inched behind himself toward Hux's back. They both kept one hand on their guns in the air, aimed in front of them. 

One of the two in front of Ren was a lawman, and one of the two in front of Hux was a con. Ren knew because he had a scar across one eye and he held himself like a con, careful and dangerous. He looked at Hux like he knew him.

The lawman in front of Ren said, Give it up, boys. The Mayor ain't goin' nowhere and you ain't got enough guns.

Hux's fingers brushed the skin of Ren's back before they wrapped around the handle of Ren's second gun. Ren heard the low, heavy crackle of thunder in the distance. 

Looks like it might finally rain, said Hux, voice low and personal and quiet. All four guns pointed at them shook, just a little. 

Ren's fingers found a scar next to Hux's spine before they found Hux’s other gun, and he traced it before carefully gripping the handle. In front of him, the gun in his other hand was steady, pointed at the lawman. 

Grace under pressure, said Hux under his breath. You always did have it. 

I only see two men, officer, said Ren in a voice he hadn't used in years. The bar was filled with silence and the smoke of corpses.

The lawman looked at Ren's gun, at his steady hand, and then back at his face. His eyebrows pulled together, stupid and confused.

Ren cocked Hux's gun where he still held it against the warm skin of Hux's back and another low rumble of thunder sounded outside.

And I got two guns, see, said Ren. Then he drew the gun against Hux’s back.

A lifetime ago, Armie and Ben had quick draw competitions, standing back to back and drawing each other's guns. They shot beer cans in the middle of nowhere, red dust of the desert in their eyes, and talked about getting out. They never could settle on a winner. 

Now, Ren had a gun in each hand pointed at the two men to his front, and Hux had the same pointed at the two to his back. 

Each man now stared down a barrel. 

The lawman swallowed so loud the whole bar heard it, and said, Son, you pull that trigger and you're a dead man. 

Ren's hands were steady, the weight of Hux's gun in his hand perfectly matching his own. He looked between them and said, Which trigger?

At his back, Hux laughed and Ren felt it all the way to his toes. 

And I looked, said Hux, so quiet it was almost to himself, And behold a pale horse. And his name that sat on him was Death. 

The bar took a deep collective breath, a single living, fearing creature. 

Ren said, And Hell followed with him.

Four guns fired at once, and all four of The Mayor's men fell.

Ren realized his hands were steadier than they’d been in years. The last of the Mayor’s men stood between them and the bar, and Ren turned to Hux and said, You want that one?

Hux held out his hand and Ren put both his guns in it.

Be my guest, Hux said.

Ren beat the man until his hands were sticky. He beat him until the man stopped fighting and started begging, and then he beat him some more.

Something breathed in his chest, a living thing that Ren hadn’t seen in a lifetime. It made Ren want to lean forward and take the man’s throat out with his teeth. His ears were ringing so loud he couldn’t hear anything else but the wet, dead sound of his own fists on the last man’s face.

That’s enough, preacher, Hux said, voice quiet like he was pacifying an animal.

He was.

Ren looked down and he was kneeling on the ground with blood on his knuckles, blood on his knees, blood on his face. The man under him was dead.

He been dead a couple minutes already, I reckon, said Hux, helping Ren to his feet. Their hands stuck together, tacky with blood. They both turned at the same time to the Mayor, who still had a shaking pistol pointed at the bartender’s head.

Not one more step, said Snoke. Or Phasma here gets her brains all over her bar.

Ren held his hands up, but the blood rolling in warm, sticky tracks from his knuckles down his wrists and arms made it a poor peacekeeping gesture. 

Why’d you tell me that, said Hux in a dead voice. About Ben.

Ren flinched.

Snoke smiled and said, Broken man’s easier to get a leash on.

You already had a goddamn leash on us, you piece of shit, Ren said. Hux put his hand on Ren’s chest without looking at him and Ren quieted. It left a dark handprint of blood on the front of his shirt. Ren wondered how Hux had gotten his hands so covered in blood.

Our time together was running out, said Snoke. Figured Mr. Hux here might be open to make a deal if he wanted revenge on you.

A lifetime ago, Ben pounded on the courthouse doors and screamed for a judge, but the Mayor had paid them all off. He’d paid off the jailer, too. Armie don’t wanna see you, the jailer said. Don’t you come back here.

And he hadn’t.

Now, Ren hung his head in shame, and Hux very quietly handed him back his gun.

The bartender looked at the two of them and said, Y’all done talkin?

Hux squinted at her and nodded.

She was taller than the Mayor, and had the gun out of his hands and pointed at him faster than the thunderclap that shook the bar.

Hux looked up and over at Ren, half of his face pulled up.

Storm’s been coming a long way off, said Hux. Heat’s been too much for too long, preacher. Don’t you think?

Ren felt part of his mouth twitch up, but he wasn’t sure why. 

Eventually, everything’s gotta break, said Hux, and he shot the Mayor in the face.

In the distance sounded sirens, nearly erased by the approaching thunder. The bartender looked around at the red carnage of the bar and nodded at them. 

She said, I got this. I owe you, Hux. 

Hux's scars pulled when he smiled, a new smile that looked nothing like Armie's had but still drowned Ren just as hard. 

Hux nodded at her and put a bloody hand on the bar top. He said, We're square, Phas. 

Ren didn't ask how they knew each other. He didn't want to know. 

The two of them left, headed out to the car before the sirens got closer. 

When Hux wrapped his hands around the wheel it dripped blood onto his legs and when Ren lit a cigarette he left a bright red fingerprint around the end. Still, neither man spoke. 

They drove until the sirens faded into nothing and the air was heavy with unfallen rain, and then they stopped by the river. 

In silence they both got out, stripped off their blood-soaked shirts and burned them next to the riverbank. They'd done this a hundred times before, a lifetime ago. Their hands were stained red, dry and sticky and neither of them made any move to wash the blood off. 

Ren stared into the fire and listened to the hiss of it, watched out of the corner of his eye as the slow, sick black of the river inched by in silence. 

Hux stared at Ren. 

Finally, he spoke, voice quiet and a little broken. 

Preacher. 

Ren looked up, and Hux's eyes were so blue he felt it in his throat, his chest. 

I guess you didn't sell me out, Hux said, like it didn't matter. 

Ren shook his head, unable to look away from the knife-sharp color of Hux's eyes.  

I didn't. 

A roll of thunder shook the ground under Ren's feet. 

Hux took a step closer and the ground shook again. The air smelled like water and the blood on their hands. 

In the car, said Hux with his voice low and soft, What were you dreaming about?

He stepped closer again, and his hair was redder than the dirt road they were parked on. Ren could smell the ocean on him, even though he'd never been in his life. 

Preacher? 

Overhead the sky opened up, finally, finally. 

Over the hiss of a sudden biblical rain, Ren looked at Hux. His hair was the color of his hands already, dripping into his eyes. His eyes were worse than anything Ren had ever seen, so blue it hurt. 

Hux took another step closer. He said, What were you dreaming about?

Surrounded by grey sky and grey rain and red mud, Ren looked at suffocating blue and said, Drowning. 

The water loosened the blood on their hands so that when Hux grabbed Ren's face he left warm, sticky fingerprints on his cheeks. Hux kissed him harder than the rain, and the blood of ten men rolled down the side of Ren's neck. 

Ren grabbed the front of Hux's shirt in two dripping, bloody fists and breathed into his mouth in time with an earth-shattering roll of thunder. 

It was the first time Ren could breathe in years, like a cage had been sprung from around his chest. 

Hux had filthy hands in Ren's hair when he pushed him into the red mud, and when lightning struck a tree behind them and lit everything up like a fever, they didn't even turn to look. 

Told you something had to break, Hux said into Ren's open mouth. Water rolled down Hux’s jaw and settled under Ren’s ear. Seeped into his clothes, his hair. Lightning struck so close to where they were that Ren felt the ground shake, felt the warm bright shock of it on his eyelids and the tops of his arms. Inaudible over the metallic ringing of lightning in his ears, over the bright humming of barely-escaped death, Hux touched Ren’s face and said, Save me, Preacher. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi friends, i have an epilogue planned that involves sex and crime, and if anyone is interested in it i'll write it and post it. let me know :D   
> love y'all, this story was very hard to write but i enjoyed this style very much.


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